allez in alicante

Volvo may wish the world was talking about the Alicante In-Port Race – the first event of the 2017 Volvo Ocean Race – but most continue to talk about the last-minute ousting of Simeon Tienpont. With VOR’s messaging off the rails (and still no information coming out of AkzoNobel other than a short statement) and now crew telling one publication that they are not leaving for Cape Town without Simeon, what VOR needs more than anything else is a breezy, heart-in-the-throat race around the mediterranean port.
Unfortunately, the forecast is for 10 knots or less, meaning the racing is likely to suck. More fortunately, Andy Green and Sally Barkow are in the commentary booth. If Facebook is blocked in your country, head over to the VOR site to watch their bespoke, un-embeddable player (yep, somehow, some brilliant media staffer built a bespoke player…in 2017…seriously).
UPDATE: Is the VOR so broke that they don’t even have onboard audio and video for this race? Holy shit, this thing really is off the rails. Piss poor graphics, no narrative setup, dockout show, or dock walk – we heard they had cut their video budget way down, but we didn’t realize they had less money in their live budget than the 5O5 worlds…
To be fair, the first in-port race is as much of a practice for everyone – including the media folks – as it is a real race, but if it were practice, you’d think they would at least have all their assets in place. If this is the sum total of the LIVE EXPERIENCE OF THE MOST EXTREME RACE IN THE WORLD as VOR would have you believe? We all might just be yawning our way around the world.

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